The Crime: She was an elderly widow who saved pennies for charity and sometimes brought a sandwich and a cold drink to the young man she paid to mow her lawn, Joseph Murphy.

But mild-mannered 72-year-old Ruth Predmore fought back when Murphy robbed her at knifepoint in her home on Feb. 1, 1987. Minutes later, she lay on the floor, blood spurting in the air from a deep, five-inch gash that severed her jugular vein.

News: Governor John Kasich has commuted the death sentence of Joseph Murphy to life without parole.

Murphy was convicted in Marion County in 1987 for killing 72-year-old Ruth Predmore.

Kasich issued the following statement: “Joseph Murphy’s murder of Ruth Predmore was heinous and disturbing and he deserves—and continues to receive—severe punishment. Even though as a child and adolescent Murphy suffered uniquely severe and sustained verbal, physical and sexual abuse from those who should have loved him, it does not excuse his crime. However, the Ohio Supreme Court split 4-3 on whether Murphy should receive the death penalty and the late Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, in his dissent against the death penalty in this case, said that ‘in all of the death penalty cases I have reviewed, I know of no other case in which the defendant . . . was as destined for disaster as was Joseph Murphy. . .’ “After examining this case in detail with counsel I agree with Chief Justice Moyer, the National Association of Mental Illness and the Parole Board’s unanimous 8-0 decision that considering Joseph Murphy’s brutally abusive upbringing and the relatively young age at which he committed this terrible crime, the death penalty is not appropriate in this case. Thus, I have commuted his sentence to life in prison with no chance for parole. I pray for peace for all who have been impacted by this crime.”